Small black lettering reading exist on the palm of a hand, in a black and white photograph with a dark background.

Small word 'exist' on the palm

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close black and white photograph of an open palm with the word exist tattooed in small, serif, typewriter-style lettering near the base of the palm. The thin black letters are crisp and evenly weighted, and the shadowed fingers and creases of the hand frame the word against a dark background. The composition is tight and low-key, with the tattoo as the clear focal point.

Lettering Hand Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, you asked whether the big top is still standing. It is, mostly. The canvas has three patches the shape of Ireland, the elephant went to a farm in Norfolk in March, and Mr Doyle still insists we open on Saturdays. Last night we took eleven pounds at the gate, and two of that was a pair of boys who wanted their money back once they saw the lion was a dog in a wig.

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I have been typing the bills this week on the old Remington in the wagon, because the printer in Chesterfield wants cash up front and Doyle hasn't any. Every poster needs a line along the bottom. He wanted Come and Marvel, then The Last Great Show on Earth, and I told him nobody marvels at a thing they can see from the road. So the bottom line now reads, in capitals, WE STILL EXIST. He said it was too sad. I said it was accurate.

The Remington's e sticks, so every bill goes out with a little ink blot where the letter lands too hard. Yesterday I typed one word by itself on a card for the wagon door, just to check the ribbon, and I stood there a long while looking at it. Exist. Small, plain, nothing to sell. No one will pay a shilling for it, but it is the only thing on the bills that is true.

Doyle read it over my shoulder and said nothing, which for him is a speech. Then he took the card and pinned it beside the ticket box, where the sun catches it at four o'clock. On Saturday thirty people came through the flap, and a few of them stopped to read it before they found their seats. Come if you can. Bring your own chair. Love, Ada.